Marsh: Global insurance rates continue decline | Insurance Business

Insurance rates have continued to decline for the 15th straight quarter, new research from Marsh has found. However, declines have moderated for the first time since 2012.

In the Pacific region, financial and professional liability insurance rates increased by 1.7%, one of the few increases seen in the commercial market around the world.

The new Marsh Global Insurance Market Index for Q4 found that while rates had declined, 2016 marked the first year in which the average rate decline of global insurance rates had moderated since the inception of the report in 2012.

“It is the fifteenth consecutive quarter in which rates declined, largely due to a global market with substantial capacity and an absence of significant catastrophe losses,” the report states.

For the Pacific market, while financial and professional liability insurance rates increased by close to 2%, and casualty rates saw a slight 0.4% increase on average, the property market saw a 5% decline which offset other gains.

The Pacific composite rate decreases were more moderate than the global rate of decline, the report found.

Global insurance rates declined by an average of 3.1%, Marsh found, compared with 5% in the same period of 2015.